Accelerating Women Entrepreneurship in India: Roadmap 2020 and Beyond

How can we stimulate women entrepreneurship to improve economic opportunities?

With a national blind spot affecting efforts to encourage women entrepreneurship, Athena developed a road-map, seeking to address women entrepreneurs’ needs. This involved business training, facilitating business registration and certifications and enhancing access to finance. It also covered markets and network and mainstreaming gender in the entrepreneurship policies. Using an approach of affirmative action, the program also identified high growth potential women and created an enabling environment though policy reform. It then developed tools and online solutions for women entrepreneurs. Using a bottom-up diagnosis helped develop an understanding of specific positive and negative factors influencing women’s entrepreneurship in the country. The program enabled stakeholders to mobilize knowledge, resources and partnerships in a systemic manner to propel GDP growth across India.